Capstone

PSY 410: Internal Multiplicity, Dialogue, and Change

Fall Semester, 2007 (TR 3:30-4:45)

 Instuctor: William B. Stiles <stileswb@muohio.edu>

          An emerging understanding considers people not as separate, unitary individuals but as mosaics or communities of different voices. These include voices of our parents, our friends, our therapists, our favorite authors, our goals and ambitions, and our fears and resentments.

          Multiple voices within people can represent depth of resources and flexibility or they can represent fragmentation and dissociation. The difference may lie the strength of the links between the voices--the voices' ability to enter into dialogue and to draw on each other as required in daily life.

          Among theories of personality and psychotherapy, internal multiplicity is represented, in such cognitive-behavioral concepts as automatic thoughts, intrusive thoughts, self-talk, and self-statements; in such psychodynamic concepts as internal objects, introjects, and states of mind; and in the humanistic focus on contradictory aspects of self and unrealized potentials. Multiple internal voices are central in dialogical accounts of the self and in archetypal psychology, and they may be dramatically apparent in dissociative phenomena and borderline states. Multiple I-positions are deliberately used in the service of therapy and personal growth in the facilitation of reflective thinking, in the analysis of reciprocal role procedures in cognitive analytic therapy, and in empty chair work and two chair work in gestalt and process-experiential therapy.

          This capstone will offer an opportunity to explore the expanding literature on internal multiplicity and dialogue.  Readings may be drawn from such authors as Hubert Hermans, Kenneth Gergen, Mick Cooper, John Rowan, Mikael Leiman, Mary M.Watkins, Valentin N. Voloshinov, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jeffery Young, Marsha Linehan, Giancarlo Dimaggio Giovanni Liotti,  C. A. Ross, Constantine Sedikides, Miller Mair, and Dan McAdams.  The specific topics, readings, and activities will depend on the interests of class members.